Self-indulging use refers to the use of IT to fulfill needs for power and prestige (Maslow, 1954; Winter, 1996). This type of use results from the importance of image, as defined by Moore and Benbasat (1991). The use of IT as a power symbol has been widely studied in the literature (Jasperson et al., 2002; Jouët, 2000). In the secondary qualitative data available, we found that the needs for power and prestige were often combined with sharp ambition and, when also combined with the users’ perception of some lack of recognition, led to abusive behavior: Some of the users chose not to share their IT knowledge fully with others in order to boost and retain their own power and prestige (‘‘After he left, I discovered why people who worked with him could not do their job properly and why they kept complaining about him. . .He kept purposely withholding parts of the information needed to operate the system. . .This way, we always needed him to be around and it boosted his ego”: CEO, talking about a logistics manager who had left the firm). However, these last elements would need to be confirmed in further research, as we were not able to confirm them with the quantitative data we collected.
SELFINUSE1 My IT know-how gives me a certain prestige and I like that 
SELFINUSE2 I appreciate the power that my IT knowledge gives me